It depends on how she has been ridden in the past. To get her correctly on the bit, you need to ask her to relax her lower jaw, which in turn relaxes the poll, and the head lowers accordingly. To achieve this, you need to have an elastic contatc with her mouth, your elbows bent, and hands led so that your thumbs are uppermost, with your fiongers lightly closed around the reins. Ask her to relax the jaw by squeezing your fingers on the reins to create a little tension, as if squeezing water out of a sponge. Try a little experiment, raise your index finger and with the other hand, close your fingers lightly around the other finger. Then squeeze your raised index finger, varying the pressure. Then, merely by just releasing the sqeze and very slightly opening your fingers, you can 'give' the rien, without ever having to move the hand. I find that alternate squeezes either rein work much better than using both hands together. Experiment in this way with your mare at the halt. You will know as soon as she lowers her head even without looking, because you will feel the reins soften in your hands as she yields her jaw. You must then back this up with your lower legs as you move off into walk,to encourage her to step under.
If she has been trained as so many horses have in this country, (yes, dressage points and all- even at high levels) to have her jaw clamped shut with a tight flash noseband, which will prevent relaxation of the lower jaw, she is unlikely to respond to the aids that I have described above, and wil require a lot of arm strength to hold her 'on the bit'- which if this is necessary, she will not truly be 'on the bit' anyway, as she will not have developed true self carriage. I have had two students coming to me who had been trained by the same International Grand Prix dressage rider and trainer, and both had been told that they needed to take up weight training in order to be able to hold the front end in. One had been told that she needed to hold onto the contact until she felt that her arms were going to break, in order to get the horse to 'give'. I would very much like to get hold of this so called expert, and subject him to the same torture that he puts horses through.
If your mare has been 'trained' in this way, she will need to be retrained to go on a lighter contact.
Have you seen her being ridden by other more experienced riders- did they have to use strength to get her to lower her head?
Heather
